A few years later, after I had stretched my tiny budget to indulge in a set of Erté’s Numerals series, my walls were lined with sinuous bodies in a mesmerising mix of sexuality and elegance – naked Adam and Eve couples entwined in leaves as number four; or a half-animal, half-human curled into number nine.

The “Alphabet” series by Erté, on display at the Hermitage Museum in 2016 for the exhibition, "Erté, Art Deco Genius: A return to St Petersburg"

My memories of Erté include my visit to his tiny flat near the Bois de Boulogne, where a series of ingenious cupboards were made so that the doors unfolded with a drawing hung on each side.

Right from his beginnings, Erté’s vision was exquisitely attached to a new style after the First World War. Wedded to modernity ever since he visited the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, the artist’s work made him the godfather of Art Deco even before the war.

The “Love” illustration by Romain de Tirtoff, popularly known as Erté (1929)

The artist himself passed away in 1990 at age 97, but with continuing support from Seven Arts, the agency founded by the art collectors and dealers Eric and Salome Estorick, Erté’s work is having another of his artistic moments at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, where a collection of jewellery and accessories inspired by Erté is for sale at its gift shop.

The “Erté-Zizi” necklace and Earrings from the Erté collection, made in partnership with Sevenarts Ltd and The Metropolitain Museum of Art, New York

As so often with fashion today, I don’t know which designer gave me the most surprise in the use of elements of Erté’s work. Michael Halpern, who prefers to be known only by his family name, grew up in America with artistic parents, but came to Central Saint Martins in London and stayed in the UK, launching his own line in 2017.

Halpern, who rose to fame with sparkling dresses that became a worldwide trend, moved away from pure glitter. But he developed silver and gilt for shimmering dresses and coats with rich, shiny swirls. It was Art Deco patterns inspired by Erté, whose work the designer had found among his parents’ books, which illuminated Halpern’s work.

“It was just so enthralling to see when Erté had things that morph into others – animals that become fish, that become trees – and every time you look at it you see a different colour,” the designer explained.

“She always had all of these art history books and Erté was someone I gravitated towards since I was really young,” Halpern said. “I had some in my room and my mother questioned me with prompts like, ‘Why do you like this?’”

“It was the fantasy about it,” he continued. “It was so crazy to have a snake growing into a tree. It seemed so nonsensical and that made me happy. I love to look at it still; the honest way Erté worked was just so beautiful.”

Details of Erté drawings from the Helene Martini collection, auctioned n 2013 at Drouot in Paris

The latest on the Erté trail is Stella McCartney, a designer with a sporty, “strong woman” approach, whom I would not have expected to send out a re-working of Erté’s fantastical patterns.

But Stella told me an unexpected story: How, travelling with her mother as a youngster, they met Erté on a plane journey.

A friendship offered Stella a chance to work with Erté. And then, for the Autumn/Winter 2020 collection, she revitalised the patterns.

“This collection was about bringing some sort of romance, a little more theatricality,” she explained. “I met Erté when I was about 12 on an aeroplane, and my mum knew I wanted to be a fashion designer and said to me, ‘If you really want to be a designer, you should go talk to that guy who is sitting over there.’“

A fabric sample by Erté. He produced more than 130 fabric designs for the Amalgamated Silk Corporation in New York from 1929-1930

“I was completely intimidated and freaked out: He was much older and quite extreme,” Stella admitted. “But I sat with him for the entire plane ride and then I went to do a work placement and I was just in love with the theatricality of Erté’s work – the drama, the absolute glamour.”

“But I could never figure out how to translate it into the runway because it was too much,” she continued. “It was never wearable and it was never anything that I felt was real. So I wanted, this season, to look into his more glamorous work. You see a lot of Erté prints at the end – the first time they’ve ever been used. I went back to the archives and to the other gentleman I met with Erté on the plane. He still works for the Erté Foundation and these are Erté’s original prints and original colourways. So it was very much taking things that I grew up with as a fashion designer that I found so dreamlike, but trying to bring them into the now. And trying to make them functional and real.”

Stella worked hard to translate Erté’s vision into her own aesthetic vocabulary – always with its compelling tension of the feminisation of masculine clothing. But, among the very real elements of vegan leather and animal-free shearling, the designer added a touch of artistry: The “Jelly Fish”, “Tumbling Locks”, and “Starburst”, all originally from Erté’s artistic hands.